Hacking your keyboard with karabiner

Update

I’ve since come up with an easier way to maintain my rules. This post talks of some of the cool things you can do with Karabiner. But if you want a more maintainable way of customizing all this, read my other post instead.

tl;dr:

brew install yqrashawn/goku/goku
mkdir -p ~/.config && cd ~/.config
touch karabiner/karabiner.json
touch karabiner.edn
# update your edn file with a sample from here https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo/blob/master/tutorial.md
# or mine: https://gist.github.com/kaushikgopal/ff7a92bbc887e59699c804b59074a126
goku

Background

I’ve been messing with mechanical keyboards recently.¹ There was one in particular which is a 60% layout that I fell in love with.

Learning is more important that Knowing

… You should mention what technologies you are using (because listing WCF or Java will save me the hassle of applying, and you the hassle of rejecting me), but don’t list specific tools, languages and frameworks as requirements.

Good developers who know Rails can learn Django or Node.

Going between Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL and Postgres is all pretty trivial.

… I remember being asked quite eagerly, during a pre-interview, if I knew a specific view engine (like erb, or haml…). Seriously, a view engine!?!? A shitty programmer can learn a new view engine in 10 minutes. Or a more common one that always gets to me is listing some specific version control software. Or a specific library that solves a trivial problem (I see this all the time from the .NET world with DI and mocking frameworks)

Good insight on interviewing programmers

If you’re in the business of hiring programmers, the article linked is a must read. It’s concise and a gold read. No excuse for not reading it.

Avoid nano-questions
A good engineer thinks abstractly in terms of designing and building systems, they think in terms of algorithms, components, and engineering design. They do not necessarily know all of the details of syntax of a given language, especially if they are used to a good IDE…
… it is more important that I be able to tell you when and where I should use inheritance, and when and where I should use polymorphism, than to be able to spit off the definition. ((bolded text my own))
Basically: Any question that takes 5 seconds to answer with Google is not a good question. My favorite phone interview question? “What’s your favorite language?” followed by “What are it’s weaknesses?”

Hacking your keyboard with karabiner

Update

I’ve since come up with an easier way to maintain my rules. This post talks of some of the cool things you can do with Karabiner. But if you want a more maintainable way of customizing all this, read my other post instead.

tl;dr:

brew install yqrashawn/goku/goku
mkdir -p ~/.config && cd ~/.config
touch karabiner/karabiner.json
touch karabiner.edn
# update your edn file with a sample from here https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo/blob/master/tutorial.md
# or mine: https://gist.github.com/kaushikgopal/ff7a92bbc887e59699c804b59074a126
goku

Background

I’ve been messing with mechanical keyboards recently.¹ There was one in particular which is a 60% layout that I fell in love with.

Hacking your keyboard with karabiner

Update

I’ve since come up with an easier way to maintain my rules. This post talks of some of the cool things you can do with Karabiner. But if you want a more maintainable way of customizing all this, read my other post instead.

tl;dr:

brew install yqrashawn/goku/goku
mkdir -p ~/.config && cd ~/.config
touch karabiner/karabiner.json
touch karabiner.edn
# update your edn file with a sample from here https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo/blob/master/tutorial.md
# or mine: https://gist.github.com/kaushikgopal/ff7a92bbc887e59699c804b59074a126
goku

Background

I’ve been messing with mechanical keyboards recently.¹ There was one in particular which is a 60% layout that I fell in love with.

Hacking your keyboard with karabiner

Update

I’ve since come up with an easier way to maintain my rules. This post talks of some of the cool things you can do with Karabiner. But if you want a more maintainable way of customizing all this, read my other post instead.

tl;dr:

brew install yqrashawn/goku/goku
mkdir -p ~/.config && cd ~/.config
touch karabiner/karabiner.json
touch karabiner.edn
# update your edn file with a sample from here https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo/blob/master/tutorial.md
# or mine: https://gist.github.com/kaushikgopal/ff7a92bbc887e59699c804b59074a126
goku

Background

I’ve been messing with mechanical keyboards recently.¹ There was one in particular which is a 60% layout that I fell in love with.

Hacking your keyboard with karabiner

Update

I’ve since come up with an easier way to maintain my rules. This post talks of some of the cool things you can do with Karabiner. But if you want a more maintainable way of customizing all this, read my other post instead.

tl;dr:

brew install yqrashawn/goku/goku
mkdir -p ~/.config && cd ~/.config
touch karabiner/karabiner.json
touch karabiner.edn
# update your edn file with a sample from here https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo/blob/master/tutorial.md
# or mine: https://gist.github.com/kaushikgopal/ff7a92bbc887e59699c804b59074a126
goku

Background

I’ve been messing with mechanical keyboards recently.¹ There was one in particular which is a 60% layout that I fell in love with.

assertLastValue for RxJava TestObservers

The TestObserver is an RxJava staple for testing.

It allows you to assert values in a stream, in the specific order they were emitted. Here’s a quick code snippet from the movies-usf repository ¹:

@Test
fun onSearchingForMovieBladeRunner_shouldSeeSearchResult() {
    viewModel = MSMainVm(mockApp, mockMovieRepo)
    val viewStateTester = viewModel.viewState.test()

    viewModel.processInput(SearchMovieEvent("blade runner 2049"))

    viewStateTester.assertValueAt(1) {
        assertThat(it.searchedMovieTitle).isEqualTo("Searching Movie...")
        true
    }

    viewStateTester.assertValueAt(2) {
        assertThat(it.searchedMovieTitle).isEqualTo("Blade Runner 2049")
        // ...
        true
    }
}

If you look at the source for the base TestObserver, there are a bunch of these useful methods:

Space Shuttle style programming

Sometime back I ran across a thread where folks talked about this programming style called “Space Shuttle style” that the Kubernetes codebase followed.

// ==================================================================
// PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIMPLIFY THIS CODE.
// KEEP THE SPACE SHUTTLE FLYING.
// ==================================================================
//
// This controller is intentionally written in a very verbose style.  You will
// notice:
//
// 1.  Every 'if' statement has a matching 'else' (exception: simple error
//     checks for a client API call)
// 2.  Things that may seem obvious are commented explicitly
//
// We call this style 'space shuttle style'.  Space shuttle style is meant to
// ensure that every branch and condition is considered and accounted for -
// the same way code is written at NASA for applications like the space
// shuttle.
//
// Originally, the work of this controller was split amongst three
// controllers.  This controller is the result a large effort to simplify the
// PV subsystem.  During that effort, it became clear that we needed to ensure
// that every single condition was handled and accounted for in the code, even
// if it resulted in no-op code branches.
//
// As a result, the controller code may seem overly verbose, commented, and
// 'branchy'.  However, a large amount of business knowledge and context is
// recorded here in order to ensure that future maintainers can correctly
// reason through the complexities of the binding behavior.  For that reason,
// changes to this file should preserve and add to the space shuttle style.
//
// ==================================================================
// PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIMPLIFY THIS CODE.
// KEEP THE SPACE SHUTTLE FLYING.
// ==================================================================

To be clear: I don’t follow the Space Shuttle style programming with my own code. However, I’ve noticed now that when I do comment my code, I’m a little more liberal with my explanations. It’s made me realize that commenting your code doesn’t necessarily always mean bastardizing it.

Rx Is Coming

i spent a huge part of my 2014 on “Rx” (or reactive extensions) which is essentially a library that helps with a development pattern called “reactive programming”. i think Rx is going to be huge in the app development world. it’s already picked up a lot of steam, but i think it’s going to become a staple for professional app developers.

consider this extremely common scenario:

you’re in Burundi surfing facebook. you want to get the latest updates from facebook, so your smart phone (from a network in Burundi) shoots a request to the facebook servers in Menlo Park. that server reconciles your request and sends back 5 epic selfies from your dearest friends. in our universe, this takes time. maybe not a whole lot according to you (a second perhaps) but for that mini super-computer you hold in your hand, that’s 1000000 microseconds. that’s a long time that you’re asking it to twiddle its thumbs (given that it usually processes stuff in a couple of microseconds). what’s it supposed to do until it hears back from the facebook servers? after it’s done showing you the updates for your first screen, when would it know to trigger another update? what if the data that came back from the servers indicated that you need some more information? what if the third request in that chain failed for some reason? welcome to the world of asynchronous programming. Rx (or FRP as it is mistakingly assumed to be synonymous with) was built to deal with a lot of this pain.

RxJava Tip for the Day - Share, Publish, Refcount and All That Jazz

Ok, so in my previous post I innocuously introduced the .share() operator.

Observable<Object> tapEventEmitter = _rxBus.toObserverable().share();

The .share() operator is basically just a wrapper to the chained call .publish().refcount().

You’ll find the chained combo .publish().refcount() used in quite a few Rx examples on the web. It allows you to “share” the emission of the stream. Considering how powerpacked and frequently used this combo is, RxJava basically introduced the friendlier more useful operator share(). This mechanism is sometimes referred to as “multicasting”.

Learning is more important that Knowing

… You should mention what technologies you are using (because listing WCF or Java will save me the hassle of applying, and you the hassle of rejecting me), but don’t list specific tools, languages and frameworks as requirements.

Good developers who know Rails can learn Django or Node.

Going between Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL and Postgres is all pretty trivial.

… I remember being asked quite eagerly, during a pre-interview, if I knew a specific view engine (like erb, or haml…). Seriously, a view engine!?!? A shitty programmer can learn a new view engine in 10 minutes. Or a more common one that always gets to me is listing some specific version control software. Or a specific library that solves a trivial problem (I see this all the time from the .NET world with DI and mocking frameworks)

Good insight on interviewing programmers

If you’re in the business of hiring programmers, the article linked is a must read. It’s concise and a gold read. No excuse for not reading it.

Avoid nano-questions
A good engineer thinks abstractly in terms of designing and building systems, they think in terms of algorithms, components, and engineering design. They do not necessarily know all of the details of syntax of a given language, especially if they are used to a good IDE…
… it is more important that I be able to tell you when and where I should use inheritance, and when and where I should use polymorphism, than to be able to spit off the definition. ((bolded text my own))
Basically: Any question that takes 5 seconds to answer with Google is not a good question. My favorite phone interview question? “What’s your favorite language?” followed by “What are it’s weaknesses?”

assertLastValue for RxJava TestObservers

The TestObserver is an RxJava staple for testing.

It allows you to assert values in a stream, in the specific order they were emitted. Here’s a quick code snippet from the movies-usf repository ¹:

@Test
fun onSearchingForMovieBladeRunner_shouldSeeSearchResult() {
    viewModel = MSMainVm(mockApp, mockMovieRepo)
    val viewStateTester = viewModel.viewState.test()

    viewModel.processInput(SearchMovieEvent("blade runner 2049"))

    viewStateTester.assertValueAt(1) {
        assertThat(it.searchedMovieTitle).isEqualTo("Searching Movie...")
        true
    }

    viewStateTester.assertValueAt(2) {
        assertThat(it.searchedMovieTitle).isEqualTo("Blade Runner 2049")
        // ...
        true
    }
}

If you look at the source for the base TestObserver, there are a bunch of these useful methods:

RxJava Tip for the Day - Share, Publish, Refcount and All That Jazz

Ok, so in my previous post I innocuously introduced the .share() operator.

Observable<Object> tapEventEmitter = _rxBus.toObserverable().share();

The .share() operator is basically just a wrapper to the chained call .publish().refcount().

You’ll find the chained combo .publish().refcount() used in quite a few Rx examples on the web. It allows you to “share” the emission of the stream. Considering how powerpacked and frequently used this combo is, RxJava basically introduced the friendlier more useful operator share(). This mechanism is sometimes referred to as “multicasting”.

Space Shuttle style programming

Sometime back I ran across a thread where folks talked about this programming style called “Space Shuttle style” that the Kubernetes codebase followed.

// ==================================================================
// PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIMPLIFY THIS CODE.
// KEEP THE SPACE SHUTTLE FLYING.
// ==================================================================
//
// This controller is intentionally written in a very verbose style.  You will
// notice:
//
// 1.  Every 'if' statement has a matching 'else' (exception: simple error
//     checks for a client API call)
// 2.  Things that may seem obvious are commented explicitly
//
// We call this style 'space shuttle style'.  Space shuttle style is meant to
// ensure that every branch and condition is considered and accounted for -
// the same way code is written at NASA for applications like the space
// shuttle.
//
// Originally, the work of this controller was split amongst three
// controllers.  This controller is the result a large effort to simplify the
// PV subsystem.  During that effort, it became clear that we needed to ensure
// that every single condition was handled and accounted for in the code, even
// if it resulted in no-op code branches.
//
// As a result, the controller code may seem overly verbose, commented, and
// 'branchy'.  However, a large amount of business knowledge and context is
// recorded here in order to ensure that future maintainers can correctly
// reason through the complexities of the binding behavior.  For that reason,
// changes to this file should preserve and add to the space shuttle style.
//
// ==================================================================
// PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIMPLIFY THIS CODE.
// KEEP THE SPACE SHUTTLE FLYING.
// ==================================================================

To be clear: I don’t follow the Space Shuttle style programming with my own code. However, I’ve noticed now that when I do comment my code, I’m a little more liberal with my explanations. It’s made me realize that commenting your code doesn’t necessarily always mean bastardizing it.

Learning is more important that Knowing

… You should mention what technologies you are using (because listing WCF or Java will save me the hassle of applying, and you the hassle of rejecting me), but don’t list specific tools, languages and frameworks as requirements.

Good developers who know Rails can learn Django or Node.

Going between Oracle, SQL Server, MySQL and Postgres is all pretty trivial.

… I remember being asked quite eagerly, during a pre-interview, if I knew a specific view engine (like erb, or haml…). Seriously, a view engine!?!? A shitty programmer can learn a new view engine in 10 minutes. Or a more common one that always gets to me is listing some specific version control software. Or a specific library that solves a trivial problem (I see this all the time from the .NET world with DI and mocking frameworks)

Hacking your keyboard with karabiner

Update

I’ve since come up with an easier way to maintain my rules. This post talks of some of the cool things you can do with Karabiner. But if you want a more maintainable way of customizing all this, read my other post instead.

tl;dr:

brew install yqrashawn/goku/goku
mkdir -p ~/.config && cd ~/.config
touch karabiner/karabiner.json
touch karabiner.edn
# update your edn file with a sample from here https://github.com/yqrashawn/GokuRakuJoudo/blob/master/tutorial.md
# or mine: https://gist.github.com/kaushikgopal/ff7a92bbc887e59699c804b59074a126
goku

Background

I’ve been messing with mechanical keyboards recently.¹ There was one in particular which is a 60% layout that I fell in love with.